While 'taking over the world' seems pretty canned it's only b/c there's really not much else for powerful evil people to do. It's like okay we're playing by our own rules...why..because a) we think we should make the rules ourselves and/or b) we are so obsessed with some goal that we don't care about the rules. Evey 'bad guy' I've ever seen has followed this pattern of screwing the rules for some random thing they want. And the only things that are worth screwing the rules for are revenge, personal profit, world domination, and world destruction.

As uninteresting as the Leaders plan seems, what else would such a group of powerful ninjas work towards? While they could possibly kill almost everyone on earth, they can't directly control all those people but they can set themselves up in a situation where they can threaten everyone into subjugation by being the only viable organized ninja group (viable b/c they're so powerful and can cause a ruckus anywhere at anytime).

Now that I think of it, they're plot is remarkably similar to Blood+, with the Bijuu as Chiropterans and Akatsuki as Cinq Fleches/America with theire Corpse Corps...it's as if Kishi wrote the dialogue whle watching that show....